


Taste of Something Sweet

by Echofell



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Challenging myself to write in a present tense but still use some past-tense with it, M/M, Some fluffy friendship but also admiration, a rewrite of an old FF.net work, and not use any inner monologue, it's still simple but it's better, not a shippy fic but I think it's a sweet one, rewriting old stuff is a good way to get back into writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 13:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echofell/pseuds/Echofell
Summary: Astral learns what ice cream is and wishes he could try it. A specific memory of Yuma's involving a duel and a rice ball gives him an idea to make that wish a reality. Hint of Keyshipping, but nothing significant on the latter. Single-chapter story.





	Taste of Something Sweet

Yuma decides to take a different route home from school that day. Kotori had to stay after to retake a test, so Yuma is left to himself today. 

Well, himself and Astral.

Yuma takes a route home that leads past the park, diverting from the normal path he took with Kotori.

Astral appears within a few minutes. He’s quiet for a moment, hovering alongside Yuma as if waiting for him to say something first. When Yuma is silent, however, Astral pipes up. 

"Your last class doesn’t seem to have left you very happy, Yuma."

Yuma shakes his head. “I didn’t do well on my math test. Not that that’s surprising.”

Yuma hits the button on the traffic light and waits for his signal to cross.

Astral eyes him for a moment and then looks away. "I'm sorry."

That brings a small laugh out of Yuma. Astral used to annoy him to death. Earlier in their relationship, he was too stubborn to accept Astral's help in duels, too unaffectionate to thank him or warm up to him, and too wary of talking to Astral in public for fear of what others would think. All that has faded now. He loves Astral. They quarrel, they ignore each other sometimes, and they would do anything for each other. His constant companion and the catalyst for most of his best memories.

And it was amusing to see Astral pick up human habits and learn how to tell when he was upset. Perceptive as always, but more now with his knowledge of emotions and lining his own up with Yuma’s. 

"It's okay. Thanks, Astral." 

It doesn't take Yuma long to near the park. He follows the sidewalk to continue on his way.

He was now across a street from the park. Maple leaves flutter in the wind.

To the left, there were various small, independent businesses. Secondhand clothing, a pet salon next to a beauty salon, arts and crafts, a bookstore… There was even an open stand between two buildings displaying fresh fruit and vegetables. There’s a whimsical feel to the older architecture and random assortment of stores, and Yuma likes it. It isn't crowded with shoppers, but business seems steady enough, and there was a pleasant bustle and light whirr of broken conversations.

Astral trails behind Yuma and periodically glides apart from him, looking in each of the store's display windows until Yuma catches up. Yuma has never walked this particular stretch with Astral's company. 

Astral stops at a particular window for longer than usual, turning his head slightly back and forth to follow whatever he’d been captured by. Yuma follows Astral’s gaze to the window and sees that it’s the ice cream store he’d been to once a few years ago. What did he have? Some kind of crumbled candy bar in a cake batter ice cream. 

Yuma stops beside Astral and glances sideways at him for a few seconds, at the glow in his eyes and the softer features he always gets when he’s curious about something, like he’s a child eyeing presents under a Christmas tree.

A mother and young girl are at the counter inside, waiting on their ice cream. A mother and daughter turn away from the counter, and the girl gets handed her cup of ice cream, some kind of chocolate mix.

Yuma observed Astral's face. His different-colored eyes reflected the decorative neon string lights lacing the ceiling of the store, and they were full of wonder and longing. Astral's lips were parted in an expression of curiosity. Yuma smiles a bit. Astral looks cute when he’s in awe of something like this. That’s a fair thing to notice, right?

Fortunately, Astral spoke and gave Yuma a distraction from his confused thoughts.

"Yuma, what does ice cream taste like?"

"Uh… Well, it's frozen and sweet. There’s a ton of different flavors. It’s thick, but…it melts in your mouth."

Astral's eyes dull a bit. Trying to relate to things he can’t feel. That was always the hardest.

Yuma's heart sank. There were so many things he took for granted that Astral couldn’t—to touch, to feel, to eat.

Yuma watched the girl and her mother exit the store and walk away.

Maybe he could try it after all. 

Several months ago, he would have tossed the idea away in fear of what people around him might think. He didn’t talk as freely aloud with Astral back then either. But who cares now? The only person here that he cares about is Astral, and he cares too much to see Astral longing when there’s something he can do about it. 

"Hey, Astral. I have an idea. Follow me." Yuma brushes by him and ducks into the nearest alleyway, glancing back to make sure he’s following.

"What is it, Yuma?" The boy has taken off his backpack and laid it beside him on the ground.

Yuma is beaming. "I want you to overlay with me."

Astral’s expression is blanker than usual. "Why?"

"Just trust me."

"We aren't in a duel. Do you think that will work?"

"I don't know. Let's just…try," he says, with a small huff. Yuma lifts his left arm and held out his hand, still optimistic. Astral hesitated. Even Astral knew how odd it would look. They’re in public, and a boy with spiked hair, a tight-fitting suit, and red armor would certainly look out of place.

But Yuma's eyes are certain, and he’s still smiling.

Astral reaches out to Yuma with his own hand, closing his eyes. He sees a thought of their bodies turning into red and blue auras that intertwine to form someone new. Would it work? They'd done it many times before, but never outside a duel. 

He slips his clear hand into Yuma's and feels a connection form between them. This warmth… It had been a while. It was comforting. It still surprises him. 

And within just a few seconds, he felt even warmer. Astral opens his eyes as the light on their skin dims. No, Yuma opened their eyes—both seeing through them as if they were their own. 

Yuma glances down at himself. They look how they had the other times they’d fused, only without the Duel Disk on their right arm or the D-Gazer over an eye.

"See? I told you it would work.” Yuma lifts their shared right arm and notices the lack of a Duel Disk. Then he bends down and picks up his backpack, slinging it over one shoulder as usual with a proud smile.

“Yuma, what are we doing?”

"Don’t worry! I'll do the talking." Yuma takes a deep breath and steps out into the alleyway.

He keeps his eyes fixed on his goal and ignores the people glancing in confusion his way.

Yuma looks at his reflection on the glass as he passes the window. He’d always been too busy dueling to look at them like this, and had never been able to see their face. He had just known, somehow, likely because Astral would sometimes peel away from his body in a ghost form and look at him. Their minds were connected, so he’d gotten an idea of what they looked like through Astral—but the image had always been faint, lacking much depth or focus. So he was surprised to see his eyes being the colors of Astral's, to see the turquoise markings underneath them, to see the shape of their hair combined.

Yuma pushes through the door and approaches the counter. The woman there turns to smile and say hello, but her eyes widen, her smile falls, and scrutiny clouds her face instead. "H-hello," she stammers, her tone torn between friendly and confused. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm going to get some ice cream," Yuma stated, which shouldn't have been necessary. He fakes a smile and adds, “There’s an anime convention today.”

“Oh… I see. Well…?”

Yuma looks down toward the numerous bins of ice cream and all the different flavors. 

Astral wills himself to separate, and glides apart from Yuma’s skin in his usual state. He was able to be apart from Yuma in their Zexal form and see things through his own eyes, but still feel everything Yuma did and touch his thoughts. It felt easier to be within Yuma than apart from him in this form, but seeing things through Yuma's eyes could be inconvenient when they wanted to look at different things.

Astral realizes why Yuma is doing this. Not just because he’d commented on it earlier. Yuma must have remembered the rice ball they had once shared in this form.

After half a minute of pondering, Yuma decides. "I'll have three scoops. One rocky road, one vanilla bean, and one strawberry." The three most classic flavors.

She scoops the mounds of ice cream from their tubs and into a large bowl. She set the bowl on top of the counter between them and stated the price. Yuma moves the backpack off his shoulder to get money from his wallet, leaving some extra in the tip jar.

Yuma thanked her and walks out the door with their treat, turning his head to meet Astral's gaze and smile at him.

"Yuma, thank you." Astral’s eyes were wide, flicking to observe the dessert before looking back at Yuma. "You didn't need to do that."

"I wanted to, Astral." Yuma waits for a car to stop at the crosswalk and then hurries across with a small wave in their direction. "Besides," he continues, "I benefit from this too!"

He enters the park, locating a nearby park bench underneath a large red maple and reclined into it, dropping his backpack beside him. "Okay, Astral, are you ready?"

Astral nods, visibly spilling over with anticipation. He then disappears, melting back into Yuma's skin and their shared body.

Yuma digs into the scoop of rocky road first and takes a bite. He savors it slowly. It isn’t long before he hears Astral’s voice echoing in his mind.

“This is chocolate? The sweet I’ve heard of the most—I can see why! So this is what ‘sweet’ tastes like.”

Yuma looks at Astral and sees that he looks like a…crazed, adorable kitten thrashing around in a box or something. He honestly can’t figure out how to describe it. It was excitement taken up a notch. 

“There’s a lot of different kinds of ‘sweet.’” Yuma smiles a bit without meaning to, and he isn’t sure if it was caused by Astral smiling himself or if it was just Yuma smiling himself at hearing Astral so excited.

Yuma continues with a bite of vanilla. 

“This is…so mild. Still sweet. So different than chocolate, though, but…not in a bad way.” 

Yuma doesn’t say anything, just gathers a spoonful of strawberry, which Astral was also happy to comment on. 

“Is the fruit this good too?”

“Oh yeah, strawberries are great. Fruit flavoring has a tendency to taste much stronger than what they’re based on, or not at all if it’s grape… But I think strawberry might be the closest, even if they’re still a bit different. Now here—try this.” 

Now that they’d tried a spoonful of each, Yuma collects a bit of each flavor on his plastic spoon and lets the combination melt across his tongue. He suddenly feels a surge of emotion in his chest and realizes it’s not his own, but Astral’s.

“The three are amazing together!” 

Yuma chuckles—he’s ever heard Astral sound so happy. But it was just a step up from the World Duel Carnival and the rice balls. Astral had said it himself then—he’d never felt so alive. He wanted to feel alive again. And now, he had. 

_I need to do this more often._

Astral appears beside Yuma. He’s positively beaming. He also seems to be glowing more brightly, his aura along with his markings, the shine reflecting in the emblems on his collarbones. 

“So? How does it score compared to last time?” Yuma jokes.

"This is even better than rice balls!” Astral states it so certainly. "I didn’t know food was so good. You get to do this every day, with so many other things!” 

“Well…maybe I’ll have to let you in on that sometimes now.”

“I would love that.”

Yuma laughs. “I figured as much, from this.” 

Astral calms, and looks at his companion with such a tender gaze and soft smile that Yuma falls silent and just stares at him, feeling a rush of emotion so strong that it brings tears to his eyes. And suddenly he’s reminded of emotions regarding Astral that he didn’t often get so floored by, ones that were typically satiated by their daily interactions, but ones that were clearly a big part of those too. 

“Thank you so much, Yuma."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. It means a lot to me.


End file.
